Free Athabasca by Alistair MacLean Page A

until we turn up one or two hard facts. We hope that one may even result from a close inspection of Pump Station Four. Coming out there, Mr. Black?"
    "Good heavens, no. I'm very much a desk-bound citizen. But I shall await your return with interest."
    "Return? I'm going no place. Those frozen wastes -- not for me. My excellent representatives know what to look for. Besides, someone has to stay and run the command post. How far to the pump station, Mr. Bronowski?"
    "Helicopter miles? Hundred and forty, give or take."
    "Splendid. That will leave us ample time for a belated lunch. Your commissary is still open, Mr. Finlayson, I trust, and your wine cellar tolerable?"
    "Sorry about that, Mr. Brady." Finlayson made no effort to conceal the satisfaction in his voice. "Company regulations forbid alcohol."
    "No need to distress yourself," Brady said urbanely. "Aboard my Jet is the finest cellar north of the Arctic Circle"
     
     
     
    Five
    Three generator-fed arc lamps threw the half-demolished pump house and its shattered contents into harsh relief, glaring white and stygian blackness, with no intermediate shading between. Snow drifted silently down through the all-but-vanished roof, and a high wind blew a fine white cloud through a gaping hole in the northern wall. Already the combined effects of the two snows had softened and blurred the outlines of the machinery, but not sufficiently to conceal the fact that engines, motors, pumps and switch-gear had been either destroyed or severely damaged. Mercifully, the snow had already covered the two mounds that lay side by side before the mangled remains of a switchboard. Dermott looked slowly around with a face again as bleak as the scene that lay before him.
    "Damage evenly spread," he said, "so it couldn't have come from one central blast. Half-a-dozen charges, more likely." He turned to Poulson, the head man, a black-bearded man with bitter eyes. "How many explosions did you hear?"
    "Just the one, I think. We really can't be sure.
    If there were more after the first one, our eardrums were sure in no condition to register them. But we're agreed that one was all we heard."
    "Triggered electrically, by radio or, if they used fulminate of mercury, by sympathetic detonation. Experts, obviously." He looked at the two shapeless, snow-covered mounds. "But not so expert in other ways. Why have those two men been left here?"
    "Orders."
    "Whose orders?"
    "Head office. Not to be moved until the postmortems have been carried out."
    "Rubbish! You can't do a postmortem on a frozen body." Dermott stooped, began to clear away the snow from the nearest of the mounds, then looked up in surprise as a heavy hand clamped on his left • shoulder.
    "You deaf or something, mister?" Poulson didn't sound truculent, just annoyed. "I'm in charge here."
    "You were. Donald?''
    "Sure." Mackenzie eased Poulson's hand away and said, "Let's go talk to the head office man, Black, and hear what he has to say about obstructing murder investigations."
    "That won't be necessary, Mr. Mackenzie," Bronowski said. He nodded to Poulson. "John's upset. Wouldn't you be?"
    Poulson hesitated briefly, turned and left the pump room. Dermott had most of the snow cleared away when he felt a light touch on his shoulder. It was Poulson again, proffering him, of all things, a long-handled clothes brush. Dermott took it, smiled his thanks and delicately brushed away the remaining snow.
    The dreadfully charred skull of the dead man was barely recognizable as that of a human being, but the cause of the round hole above the eyeless left socket was unmistakable. With Mackenzie's help -- the corpse was frozen solid -- he lifted the body and peered at the back of the skull. The skin was unbroken.
    "Bullet's lodged in the head," Dermott said. "Rifling marks on it should be of interest to the police ballistics department."
    "I suppose," Bronowski agreed reluctantly. "But Alaska covers just over half a million square miles. I'm afraid optimism is